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Marriage bonus, or is it paying people to sleep together?

Jen Vuk

The Family Association’s suggestion is wrong on just about every level.

Romance isn't dead, it just needs a little cash injection - according to those old romantics known as the Australian Family Association. Late last week, the AFA announced that couples deserved to receive a federally funded ''reward'' for staying married. As AFA vice-president Mary-Louise Fowler put it: ''One innovative idea is the idea of a marriage bonus - if you become married and you remain married for five, 10, 15, 25 years."

And since the institution of marriage offers ''so much to society'', she says it's the government's ''responsibility'' to do this. Taking its cues from that little-known page-turner The Capitalist's Guide to Getting and Staying Hitched, the group also insinuated that the extra cash could encourage couples to work it out rather than choose a quick exit.

Sounds like a winner, doesn't it? I mean, there's nothing like a cheque in the mail or a fortnightly Australian government credit transaction on your bank statement to say, "Great job. Keep up the good work''.

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As those of us bound up in holy matrimony well know, wedded bliss sure can feel like bloody hard work sometimes. But don't just take our word for it. A day after the AFA's suggestion, the Coalition announced that, should it win office, it would provide $200 vouchers for couples to use in marriage or parenting education.

The proposal is billed as a critical response to the "enormous" financial and emotional cost of the "many" marriages dissolving like fairy floss inside a Swedish sauna.

It's true that more than 47,900 divorces were granted in 2007, but what the AFA and the Coalition conveniently leave out is the fact that divorces in this country have been steadily decreasing since 2001, while marriages are actually on the rise.

One other thing seriously on the increase is the number of married women trying hard to be superwomen - juggling more than their fair share of child minding, housework, shopping and bill-paying with part or even full-time work - and, by some miracle, not tap into their inner she-devil.

As US social historian Kristin Celello argues in Making Marriage Work, it's long been assumed that "women had a greater vested interest in marriage" and were therefore more "accountable for the success or failure of the relationship".

It's a misconception happily peddled by "popular media, academics and marriage counsellors". So I can't help thinking that if the AFA is serious about having more-contented and less-stressed married couples, why isn't it then throwing its weight behind social education programs and media strategies aimed at shifting such gender-specific expectations?

Of course, there are legitimate reasons why we continue to marry. According to Relationships Australia's 2008 survey, the top five were: love, companionship, to signify a life-long commitment, security for children and to make a public commitment to each other.

While financial security (and legal status) came in sixth, it is no real surprise that ''making a lazy couple of hundred'' failed to make it on the list.

The AFA probably needs to consider that offering money to a man and woman who share a bed probably isn't the smartest move by a family-friendly Christian organisation. What on earth next? Family First doing a preference deal with the Sex Party?

Contrary to what the AFA says on its Facebook page, the "stability, morale, security and prosperity of the Australian nation" is not built solely on the bedrock of marriage. Society also needs justice, understanding and inclusion.

As "Casey" wrote in response to the report last week: "What if I don't want to get married because I am not religious and don't see the point, yet I stay with my partner for 50 years because I am committed to them? Does that mean I contribute less to society and therefore shouldn't be rewarded?"

She makes some good points, but Casey might well have added that until a person's sexual preference no longer dictates whether he or she can legally take the plunge, incentives such as the AFA's marriage bonus must be seen for what they are: disingenuous and discriminatory.

Jen Vuk is a freelance writer.

35 comments

Jesus wept..Are these people for real?Maybe if we tackled the underlying reasons why marriages and defacto relationships crack instead of trying to buy our way into AFA approved nirvana, we might achieve something a bit more positive...God help us, some peoples' reasoning is as deep as wood veneer... "Vouchers for marriage".. well I suppose it makes for a catchy slogan.. don't see it as a vote winner but

Commenter

David

Location

Leongatha

Date and time

August 20, 2010, 7:31AM

Now why did I know, even as I read the headline, that the sting would be in the tail? I am not homophobic ( neither afraid of nor hateful of) but I am getting homonauseous as is a number of my gay friends: the entire world of relationships is not just about gay marriage !!!!! This constant in "your face" is starting to become counter productive. Just watch the vituperation to strike.

Commenter

The Falcon

Location

Burwood

Date and time

August 20, 2010, 8:04AM

Falcon, might not the same thing have been said about women's right to vote in its day? Until this discrimination in law is changed, then the issue won't go away. And really, why should it? Yes, there are other issues, major ones, but it wouldn't really take much for the Government to change this. But while pandering to mobs like the AFA and associated evangelical/reactionary "Christian" groups trumps justice in the eyes of the major parties, then people do need to go on speaking up.

Commenter

LL

Date and time

August 20, 2010, 9:09AM

Marriage is thing of the past and trying to bribe people to stay married is stupid. You can't force your beliefs on people get over it and let people live their own lives with their own beliefs.

Commenter

Micheal

Location

Coburg

Date and time

August 20, 2010, 9:11AM

My partner and I have been together for 10years. We have outlasted most of our friends who are not gay. Yet we will not be able to get this as we are not married. Their is no federal scheme, even a register for recognizing our relationship. Some Christian Groups have fought very hard to keep the hate for non Christians.

This policy was announced by the Liberal Party and we are very angry about it.

It reminds me of when my partner worked at Peninsular Health and they demanded to see a Marriage certificate from us, before we could get accommodation on a forced secondment to a remote country hospital for 3months. The Doctors Award was Federal. We got 18 pages from the Peninsula Health solicitors saying they could discriminate as we had no Federal Protection. We contacted Tony Abbott the then Health Minister and he asked us to change our homosexuality. In disgust, my partner left a job as a medical doctor. A country hospital had no doctor in emergency.

It looks like the Liberal Party still does not get what a loving relationship is. They only support those married. Any person who is not gay but in a loving relationship and not married is discriminated by the Liberal Party.

All this and they wonder why so many people are voting Green this election. It is not rocket science to see why.

Commenter

Dave

Location

Melbourne

Date and time

August 20, 2010, 9:13AM

I am gay, have been in the same happy, stable relationship for almost eleven years and am sick to death of the gay marriage issue. This issue is being propped up by straight do-gooders. I don't know a single gay person who wants this. It won't change our relationships at all. And The Falcon is right - this article is a fraud and it should have been obvious a mile off that it would end up being about gay marriage

Commenter

John

Location

Melbourne

Date and time

August 20, 2010, 9:32AM

I like the fact that two men or two women getting married would destroy the "sanctity" of marriage, but paying a heterosexual couple to stay married is apparently A-OK and just what Jesus wanted.

I also like the fact that adultery, quickie-marriages (e.g. Britney Spears), marriages for convenience (e.g. for citizenship), no-fault divorce (especially where children are involved), etc don't destroy the "sanctity" of marriage and aren't vocally protested by various religious groups, but once again, if "teh g@ys" were to marry, then it would be the end of civilisation as we know (just like what happened in Canada which legalised gay marriage and has since floated right off the edge of the flat Earth).

Commenter

AJ

Location

Brisbane

Date and time

August 20, 2010, 10:20AM

If you look around the Gay new Media, clearly almost all want Same-Sex Marriage. Thousand marched in the city of it. The the policy of exclusion lifted needs to be removed.

Some Christian websites have ideas for people to write in and pretend they are gay and say "I do not want gay marriage and I am gay".

I guess the haters are at it again.

Commenter

KC

Location

Melbourne

Date and time

August 20, 2010, 10:25AM

Aren't times a-changin' !. Not 15 years ago the social conservatives thought nagging people (mostly women) to stay married, have more children and stay home to raise them was all that was needed. After all, it was all women wanted - that wedding dress and a brood of little 'uns directly after.

When women changed and didn't look like they were going back, then the conservatives had to come up with something else. They've been throwing money ever since (baby bonus, child-care rebate, government sponsored maternity leave). It makes me laugh - they have twisted their 'natural part of life' into cogs in their economic machine.

If you have to start bribing people to do something it means people have other (and better) reasons NOT to do something in the first place. And the money spent in that area has to be taken from another part of the economy.

I'm not against maternity leave or the child care rebate (after all women who take time out of the work force are penalised later when they have less than half the super of the men or child-free when they retire). I just find it funny that social conservatives are tying themselves up in knots because the population is not following God's 'natural order' so they feel they have to stump up money to make it happen.

Commenter

Moya

Location

Brisbane

Date and time

August 20, 2010, 10:28AM

So the Coalition harps on about waste and then decides to waste taxpayer money by giving it away to people who decide to get hitched? Amazing. Simply amazing. This is why I hate them.

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